Kiss With A Fist
by Q.E.D. 221B
Summary: Fill for a prompt. Sherlock and John get into an ugly, knock down and drag 'em out bust up in the middle of a Scotland Yard crime scene and the job of breaking the brawl up and talking sense into the pair of the two of them falls, predictably, to Mycroft and Greg.


Few witnessed the short and entirely silent exchange between Greg and Mycroft, consisting of nothing more than a few nods, a couple of shrugs and a vague wave of the hand in the brawling duo's general direction, which spoke volumes of just how long they had known each other and just how familiar they were with such scenes, from Sherlock at least.

'Alright boys, break it up,' Greg called as he waded his way through the crowd, grabbing whatever part of the two men he first laid his hand on, which just happened to be the collar of John's shirt.

'Come on, John, you're better than this.'

'Get the hell off me, Greg!' John roared, struggling to break free as the detective tugged him away from Sherlock who was, at the same time, being pulled back by his brother, hissing and spitting what Greg assumed were threats and insults, he just heard a lot of 'fats', 'idiots' and the odd 'fine paste'.

'I'm sure whatever it is, you can work this out lik- Ow! That hurt you, John you bastard!'

'I'm going to kill him!' John bellowed. 'I swear to god, and if you're going to try to stop me you'll bloody regret it.'

Sherlock laughed shrilly.

'You couldn't kill me if you tried, you pathetic-'

'That's enough from you, Sherlock,' Mycroft called, cutting his brother off, but not before John's face, which was already a dark red by that point, turned a violent and furious purple.

'I'll show you pathetic!' John cried, fighting desperately to break Greg's grasp, actually going so far as to stomp on the copper's feet and then letting his legs go dead beneath him when that didn't work, so he was holding his entire weight.

Sherlock was trying something remarkably similar over with Mycroft, and receiving several sharp jabs in the kidney from the handle of his umbrella for his trouble.

It seemed like the plan was to just let them both run out of steam and then force them to work the problem out with words, which was perfectly fine with Greg until the second he landed hard on the concrete of the taped-off footpath, having been pulled off balance and promptly tossed over John's hunched back.

'Right,' the soldier hissed, before bolting forward and tackling a struggling Sherlock and (by extension) Mycroft down to the ground.

'Bloody hell!' Greg groaned as he pulled himself hurriedly back to his feet and dashed over to the fray, calling over his shoulder, 'You're all welcome to help! You are bloody police officers aren't you?!'

Ten minutes later and both Sherlock and John had given up on killing one another, mostly because they were both handcuffed to opposite sides of the ambulance that was supposed to be transporting the body of the victim to Bart's morgue (Sherlock was still taking the case apparently).

'Alright,' Greg snapped as he and Mycroft returned from explaining to the paramedics why they'd had to commandeer the ambulance for a bit (and allowing them to check if Mycroft's nose was broken after its collision with Sherlock's bony elbow (it wasn't thankfully, but it was still going to hurt for a little while)). 'What the hell is all of this about?! And I want a straight answer because by rights you both ought to be arrested for disturbing the peace, assaulting a police officer and... uh?'

'Crimes against the government,' Mycroft supplied around his bloody handkerchief, eyes narrowed and fixed on his little brother.

Greg nodded empathetically.

'There you go, crimes against the government, so go on - there better be a bloody good reason for it all.'

Neither Sherlock nor John answered, choosing instead to glare off moodily in opposite directions.

'Hey!' Greg barked, clapping his hands together loudly and effectively gaining both of their attention. 'You show a little respect and answer me this time, what in god's name has gotten into the two of you?! You're mates! Why the hell are you brawling in the street like a couple of bloody yobos?!'

'He started it,' Sherlock grumbled.

'Wow, Sherlock, really?!'

'He did. Stupid sentimental garbag-'

'There is nothing sentimental about it you selfish bastard!' John snapped. 'You do not walk up to a mate's friend and tell her to 'just dump him now'!'

'I was trying to look out for your best interests!' Sherlock angrily retorted.

'How the hell is that looking out for my interests.'

'She was going to leave you,' Sherlock groaned, leaning his head back against the ambulance door. 'It was so obvious she'd only hung around this long because you'd kept on dropping hints about inviting her to Paris for the weekend. But of course you couldn't see it because 'this one's the one, Sherlock'. If I had a pound for every time you've told me that I could buy you a wife over the internet!'

'Oh that's romantic, you bloody git!'

'You know, you're never happy with anything, that's your proble-'

'You can't keep making women dump me, Sherlock!' John roared.

'I'm not the one making them, your taste in women is just atrocious!' Sherlock yelled back. 'Why can't you go out with Sarah again? After the latest slew of women you've paraded before me I can't help but see her as the lesser of all evils.'

'First of all, don't talk about them like that,' John snapped. 'And second, I don't need your bloody permission!'

'Ah but you want my blessing,' Sherlock retorted. 'That's why you keep traipsing them all into the flat, one after the other, 'Sherlock meet Angie/Luly/Josie/Tammy/Tara/Tessa'.'

'You're my mate, of course I want you to like them!' John snapped. 'But it's my bloody flat too. I can bring whoever I want into it, god knows you do. At least my guests don't want to kill us both.'

'No they usually just want to kill me,' Sherlock scoffed, rolling his eyes.

'Because you act like a prat to them.'

'They were clearly unsuitable. The one before last was playing sex bingo. Apparently sleeping with you meant she could cross off Doctor AND Soldier!'

'Alright, Tory was a little off,' John confessed. 'But the others were perfectly fine, lovely, mature women. You're just a misogynist.'

'He we go,' Sherlock groaned. 'For the thousandth time, I am not a misogynist. I distrust and dislike all people equally. If you brought home a man who happened to be as incredibly unsuitable as any of your other dates, I would very well tell him the same I have with the others.'

'It's not your place-'

'It is absolutely my place!'

'You're too bloody picky!'

'And you're not picky enough!' Sherlock snapped. 'And I don't do it all the time, so you can stop accusing me of that. I just step in when things start looking serious, like you're about to pay to take her on a holiday only to get dumped at the gate upon the return flight.'

John huffed irritably and glared back off to his right, the opposite direction of Sherlock, grumbling irritably under his breath all the while.

'Look, John,' Greg sighed, running a hand through his hair. 'You can tell that he's trying to help. He's being a git, but he's trying to be a good mate to you and stop you getting hurt. It's not like he wants to see you alone forever, do you Sherlock?'

'This is ridiculous.'

'Sherlock.'

Rolling his eyes Sherlock sighed, 'If he ever came across a suitable match then no, I wouldn't mind his seeing her... strictly speaking... even if it would be somewhat inconvenient to the work and our routine at the flat an-'

'There you go, he's just looking out for you,' Greg cried, cutting the detective off.

'Yeah I know that,' John grumbled, still scowling off to his left. 'Just wish he wasn't such a bloody tosser about it all the time.'

'There's gratitude for you.'

'Sherlock, you told her to just dump him. In spite of everything that was a bit of a dick move,' Greg reasoned.

'He wouldn't have believed me so I went to the source of the problem!' Sherlock argued.

'All the same, there are better ways,' Mycroft replied, finally folding his bloody handkerchief and slotting it back into his breast pocket as a somewhat gory pocket square.

Sherlock grumbled but didn't argue any further.

Greg shared a quick glance with Mycroft, who assessed the pair of men for a moment, before giving him a small nod.

'If we uncuff you, are you going to both act like adults?' he asked, handing a key to Mycroft.

Sherlock grunted something that sounded appropriately affirmative and John did the same.

'Very well,' Mycroft sighed, stepping over to his brother whilst Greg went to John. 'We shall see if you can break the habit of a lifetime, Brother-Dear.'

'Oh shut up, Mycroft,' Sherlock snapped, receiving a small scoff from John, who was hunched over, gently rubbing his tender wrists in hopes in bettering circulation to his hands.

'You two are going to be alright?' Greg asked, stepping back.

'Yeah,' John sighed, glancing briefly over at the detective, shooting a put upon smirk, 'I suppose so.'

'Good to know,' Greg sighed. 'As a reward for being big boys, we'll drop the charges.'

'Piss off,' John scoffed.

'You're very welcome,' Greg replied with a grin. 'Now, Sherlock, do you want to see what's left of the crime scene.'

Sherlock stiffened instantly upon imagining what damage forensics had done to the place.

'No no,' Greg chided, holding up a hand. 'That's your own fault. If you two didn't go and act like a pair of wallies then you would have seen it fresh. Now you're just going to have to make do. Go on.'

Both Mycroft and Greg stepped back as Sherlock dashed past without a word, making a beeline for Anderson with John, perhaps not hot, but relatively warm on his heels.

'They'll be okay,' Greg announced with a firm nod.

'I have no doubt,' Mycroft replied, wincing when the experimental prodding of his sore nose brought back a strong negative response. 'You are aware that I'm never bringing your coffee to a crime scene again?'

'Awww, come on!'

'No no, I was assaulted and repeatedly insulted, I'm absolutely not doing it.'

'That's very close minded for a politician. Surely we could come to some sort of agreement.'

'You want to open negotiations?'

'I am very good at them.'

'Mycroft! Not at my crime scene! Piss off!'


End file.
